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00:00 family background and number two how disciplehip doesn't just happen in the church but
00:07 happens in a family and we looked at Eli and Samuel and how sometimes the sins of
00:14 your forefathers carry themselves through right through to you but you don't realize it and we
00:22 studied how you can break that through many self-reflection now it's a difficult thing to study and today we're
00:29 continuing the module with second one which is the stronghold of the mind. Now I'm going to confess
00:35 these are very difficult topics to talk with. They can be uncomfortable. We feel
00:40 it's necessary. We discuss this. Uh we will take this over a few series every
00:47 month. We'll deal with handling damaged emotions. We'll deal with how our mind
00:52 thinks. We'll deal with our holistic self. And uh I'm not a psychologist or
00:58 psychiatrist, but we would need to know a little bit of science as we go into this. And every time we do this, we're
01:05 trying to introduce a new ministry in the church which you are not familiar with. And last time we spoke, we
01:11 introduced you to the family life ministry. Today, I want to introduce you to the counseling ministry. And um very
01:18 much run by sister Caroline and Many. They have done a great job. They work
01:23 late into the nights. I don't attend the sessions because they're confidential. But sometimes after a session uh mi will
01:31 say come in and I see her 9:30 not having dinner just meeting people eating
01:37 fruit cake just to hold a tummy you know they're very dedicated so here's what we're trying to say if you have an issue
01:44 talk to us this is why a church exists don't bottle it inside we don't claim to
01:51 be experts but we want to as David says keep it real. So if you have an issue,
01:59 talk to Sister Caroline. If you're a guy going issue, talk to me. I'm not a
02:04 doctor, but I'm your friend. I'm a brother. I will pray for you. And a marital issue, talk to Brandon. We've
02:10 have sister um a couple Magdalene and Gary. They are from Trinity Methodist.
02:17 They pairing up with us. They're trained. They here to help you marital issues. So please don't keep it inside.
02:23 That's not healthy for you. And today you'll find out why. All right, we're going to go into some really difficult
02:29 things this morning. And I pray God will be with us. Let's come to God in prayer. Lord, God, keep me humble, Lord. Not the
02:36 arrogance of man, but uh but you, oh Lord, reign supreme. And we ask you,
02:43 Lord, just just keep us brave this morning to face
02:49 things we may not want to face. But Lord, you have said the truth shall
02:55 set us free. You never said the truth will be easy. But Lord, when we are free, we shall be
03:02 free indeed to to lead a life you have willed us to be. your good and perfect
03:08 will. That when godly behavior and habits so
03:14 imbu into us, so do godly instincts come out and we will lead a wise life, a
03:21 happy life, a fulfilling life, a purposeful life. And we will spread that
03:26 to those around. We will share it. We will carry out a great commission
03:32 willingly, not out of guilt, not out of duty because we are so bursting of joy.
03:38 We just want to show your love to the world. And we say this in Jesus name.
03:43 Amen. I'm going to go through three points today. Number one, the mind and
03:49 wholeness. The second point I struggled after I settled for this. Sin makes you stupid.
03:57 Oh, strong words. Some people say, "How dare you? You use the word raqa in the house of the Lord." But let me tell you,
04:04 you can't get better than this. And this is very liberating. Sin makes me stupid.
04:10 And last one, we're going to really spend time on this. Renew the mind begins from the inside out. Now, because
04:17 of time, I started this message. My wife told me, "Look, you're getting too intellectual. It was two and a half
04:23 hours. So, I'm only going to speak on one verse today. I've already prepared a message. I'm not
04:29 going to do the will of God. But that's a fantastic verse, you know, really fantastic. So today, we only going to do
04:35 Romans 12:1, but the context is verse two. You have to ask yourself what Paul
04:41 means when he says good, pleasing, and perfect will, and what it means to test
04:46 it. And we'll do that probably next month. But let's start off the chapter. Those of you who did GMA would know
04:53 this. Why is the worship thing up here? because I forgot we were supposed to do a song.
05:00 I'm so sorry. Should we? I think you should. I'm so sorry, man. So embarrassing.
05:08 Sorry, Sam. We'll do both songs at the end now. All right. Yeah.
05:15 Okay. See where you have too much in your mind. Okay. We we will go to the
05:20 word therefore. And the reason why Paul says therefore is because Romans shifts at chapter 12.
05:29 It shifts 11 chapters of theology are now put into chapter 12 and there is now
05:35 application. So the way to understand verse one and the idea of the mind is to
05:40 refer back to 11 chapters in particularly the verses that got to do with the mind. So we look heavily at
05:47 chapters 1 and two. one really deals with the mind and we'll look at chapters 8 which really deals with the spiritual
05:53 mind. So we're going to be cross referencing a bit but firstly contextually when you hear the word see
05:59 the word therefore it means you got to look at all the earlier chapters. Now now let me just give you the three
06:04 verses here three words you read it you see the word bodies
06:09 you see the word spiritual act of worship and you see the word mind. Now the three things are tied together. And
06:16 when you look at act of worship, Mark tells us this. These people honor me the lips, but their hearts afra. Meaning
06:24 worship's got to do with what? The heart. Ephesians says this. So what are we having here? We have the body. We
06:30 have the heart. We have the mind. If you remember the words of Jesus
06:36 saying, "Love your lord your God all your heart, all your mind, all your soul." Now let's give a bit of context
06:41 to a Jew. When they say worship, they think tabernacle.
06:47 They think bringing in an unbllemished animal and going to a tabernacle for the sprinkling of the blood of bulls. So
06:54 when Paul turns in on his head, he says, "You know what? You are that living sacrifice." He's like, "What?"
07:01 And why? Because God has made you clean. He has put or credited his righteousness in you. That's in Romans 3 onwards when
07:08 it talks about justification by faith by Abraham. You are now clean. Now offer
07:13 yourself. It's not a temple. Now that really turns it on his head. And Paul is
07:18 saying everything you do now. Everything you do is worship. In fact, this is the
07:25 key verse on worship. We won't look so much at worship today, but I want to look at wholeness. And it involves three
07:32 things. Your body or your actions, your heart and your mind. Put it in
07:38 simple way. If you have a tree, worship is this.
07:43 Everything that's out there, that's worship. Or put it this way, it's your
07:49 social life, your family life, your church life, your working life, your private life. And Paul says in another
07:56 very famous verse, whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do it for the glory of God. Every inch of us is
08:05 worshiped. Now we understand that here. We don't understand this here. And I'll
08:11 tell you why. Because there's something below happening.
08:17 There's something happening happening below the below the soil, below ground. And if
08:25 living sacrifices is this, what's causing us to do this? What's causing us
08:32 to worship God in every area? And here's the key thing I want to pick up today is this.
08:39 You see what happened with a lot of us right in life. We deal with this with the leaves you know because that's what
08:46 you see but we don't see what goes in the root
08:51 and you deal with the root then the fruit will be healthy. In fact
08:58 Jesus says this out of hearts of mind hearts of men comes out of the mouth.
09:03 Now let me put in a simple diagram for you to understand. There is symptom and there is cause.
09:10 We deal too often with the symptom. We don't look at the cause. And the cause
09:17 according to Paul is the mind. So here is the reality of it. I could be
09:26 active in church but completely dishonest at work.
09:31 I could be a lousy husband. I pray I'm not. You better talk to my wife. But a
09:37 loving father. You see the contradictions? I could be loyal to close friends. So,
09:44 human beings, church people are like this. You know, there's multiple
09:49 compartments in our life. In some areas, wow, look at him. He's such a devout Christian. And then the wife will say,
09:56 you should see him at home. It's true. And why?
10:03 Because we have to ask ourself what lies beneath.
10:08 Now that's very painful, you know, and we're going to unpack that today by just looking at that one verse. And I'm going
10:14 to encourage all of you to just look deep into this. Um what is under the
10:20 surface? And science tells us like I said this morning we have to go into science. Only
10:25 10% is above the surface. The iceberg model is quite used in this. But what
10:32 really drives the iceberg is what is unseen. It's the same as the tree. The
10:37 tree whether the tree is doing well has nothing to do with the tree looking big is the roots. If the roots are weak, the
10:45 tree can look great. A storm comes the tree falls. So it is what is unseen
10:53 which is important. And it's the mind that's the key. Uh this is what they tell you in science. There's behavior
11:01 and there's all your capacity to do things but it's your belief, your
11:06 values, your identity that drives it. And if you're not clear in your beliefs,
11:12 your faith, that comes out in your values, you're not clear in your identity. You can appear Christian, you
11:20 can come to church, you can serve, you can be a preacher, you can be evangelist, you can be a pastor, but the
11:27 roots are weak. I started this series because I read this book about two years
11:33 ago. It left a very deep impression on me. Uh it was by a pastor called Peter
11:38 Scazaro and he leads a very large church. He's half I think he's Hispanic.
11:44 He's got he had a Spanish congregation, English congregation. Church was growing very fast, very big.
11:52 His marriage was a mess and he was a terrible father. And if you
11:57 read the preface of the book, one point the wife tells him, "I'm leaving you
12:04 pastor." No. And he said, "I'm leaving all your ministries."
12:09 And basically the wife was telling him, "You're two-faced. You go to church. You're very hallelujah. At home, you're a different
12:15 person." And what was interesting about the book, Peter Scazaro says, "When my
12:21 wife left me and the wife didn't divorce, very biblical, the wife just couldn't live with him, just packed the
12:26 bags, went back to the moms." You know what he said? He said that was the best thing that happened to him. Oh, that's
12:34 braver because it caused him to stop
12:40 and look at what was unseen. And he came up with a few statements which I thought
12:45 was quite interesting. He said we can't change or better said invite God to
12:51 change us when we are unaware and do not see the truth. I I found that very very
12:57 very very profound. And so I read his book. I found it was very meaningful.
13:03 What I didn't like about the book was you know a lot of these books they exist is very weak. You know we are we pride
13:09 ourselves not our arrogance that this is a church that really goes into the word of God. So I wanted to really take what
13:15 he did and really find scripture and really go into scripture. He does like a lot of American books. It's peace meal.
13:21 They have four points. They will take verses left, right, center and cram four points together and you know but but I I
13:27 thought the intention of the book was great. So let's go to the first point and I
13:32 just want to get the basic out right first. Right? You got to be aware of the truth. Now let me let me because we have
13:41 a bit of time. Let me try to see whether I can um get this going.
13:47 Uh we have only two Americans with us. So I'm not going to offend many people. Have anyone read a book called Deer
13:53 Hunting and Jesus? Okay. It's a fantastic book. I'm going to talk a little bit just two minutes on
13:58 this. Right? You know in America this issue of gun control, right? It's a very divisive
14:04 issue. Do you know what is the single largest group that will stop the lobby
14:11 of gun control? Single largest group. And Christianity today carried out the
14:17 the the the thing, you know, he got the thing from the pew. Every time you say let's let's raise the age of guns, gun
14:24 control, raise the age of getting guns with large magazines because I follow this whole thing very passionately.
14:31 Guess what's the single largest group that will block it? Come on.
14:37 No, no, no, not the NRA. Let's talk about ethnic groups and religious group. Let's talk about religious groups.
14:44 Not just Christians, white Christians. And this book called deer hunting and
14:51 Jesus was very fascinating written by a guy who was in the church and left the church and he looked at the
14:58 contradiction of the evangelical mind because the point is this here you are
15:03 you're a Christian you are saying that you should love life your neighbor
15:09 everything is permissible but not everything is everything is admissible not everything is everything is
15:14 permissible not everything is beneficial yet you're the single largest group that will block gun control.
15:22 Why? Number two, here's the point just to think about. Why is there so few
15:30 biblical expositions on gun control? I mean, serious biblical expositions. You
15:35 go to the net, you talk about abortion. Fantastic. Here's how you know evangelical in America, you know, with
15:41 all due respect to, you know, no offense. They have only three issues. Jerusalem, abortion, homosexuality.
15:47 That's how you profile them from the south. I don't mean to be offensive, but you'll find a lot of articles on this.
15:54 Very few really in-depth articles on gun control. Why?
15:59 Because the mind is compartmentalized. Now, let me tell you what the book is suggesting. The book suggests
16:05 evangelical America, and I'm I'm not an expert, is driven by something below.
16:11 They think they're driving it by morality. It's not. is driven by fear. I thought
16:17 it was interesting point. Now, let me apply that to a certain thing. You say, "I'm doing this for my kids. I
16:26 want my children to do well. You all don't understand. I'm pushing my kid. I'm pushing my kid. Let's not just go after an American. Let's go after
16:32 ourselves." I love my kids. That's why I'm doing it. No,
16:38 you're doing it for yourself. because you didn't have the education that your kid had and you're projecting
16:45 it on your kid, but you don't see it. No, we got to love everyone. We got to
16:51 love everyone. We got to we got to show love. Really?
16:56 Do you know who do they think is the largest religious group here that dislikes the majority race?
17:04 Go and ask them. They'll tell you Christians. So the mind says one thing but there's
17:10 something driving us uh which is in the opposite and we can't pick that up you know. So today I want us to really look
17:17 at this and here's what Paul says. Second point sin makes us stupid. Now let's pick this up and see whether we
17:23 get somewhere in Romans 1 really fascinating there this spiraling effect.
17:29 Romans 1, we all know they say they chose idol worship. Although they knew God, they never honored him and they
17:35 replaced him with images of of idolatry. And then the verse uses his word gave
17:41 them over. God gave them over firstly sexual immorality. Then God gave them
17:46 over unnatural relationships. Then God gave them over to a depraved mind. God
17:52 gave them over to a multitude of sins. Now what do we see here? We see sin has a spiraling effect.
17:60 And what is more interesting is God's involved. You know, you can almost say
18:05 God punishes two ways. One, he punishes in eternity.
18:10 But here, Ephesians put this. He says in the foolishness of their minds.
18:16 Ephesians 3, the Gentiles have been hardened in their hearts. And when you
18:21 harden your hearts, there is a spiraling effect. Now this are symptoms.
18:28 What is the root? The root is just this in Romans 1:18.
18:35 Meaning you start off by suppressing the truth. A lot of things happen.
18:42 Why do we say sin makes us stupid? And I wish I learned this when I was a younger
18:47 man. Because you got to get to the root of why you are sinning. The evangelical
18:54 response is normally this. You're a sinning bad boy, bad girl. You keep
19:00 doing this, you're going to go to hell. Correct? So the guy feels guilty.
19:06 A, he either feels guilty, he gets depressed because he's in bondage, he can't get out of it because that sin has
19:14 so much become a habit of him or her. Or two, they go into denial. I don't do it.
19:19 I don't do it. Or three, they don't care. They say God g God's grace saves me. I can keep on sinning. And what we
19:26 don't do is get to the cause of it. And the cause here is they suppress the
19:33 truth. Get to the cause, the sin goes away. And that's the main point here.
19:40 Now let's see whether we find this in other parts of scripture. Annihas and Saphira,
19:45 Acts 5, three things they did. They lied to God.
19:50 They were hypocrites. And they basically were thieves. They wrongfully declared
19:56 the value of the land. That's corruption. But what was the root reason for this? The root was just one a desire
20:03 to be respected. But you can you can't even see it. You know, you can't see it. And how do we
20:11 know it's a desire to be respected? Because we are told in Acts 4, the end of it, Barnabas brings a piece of land
20:19 and puts it at the feet of the disciples. And they probably say, "Whoa, he got respected. I want to be respected, too." Now, do you see how
20:26 stupid this is? To be respected by men was so important,
20:32 they lie to God. That is the ultimate stupidity.
20:38 And we can be like that, isn't it? A lot of things we do. Here's a simple thing. Um, some of us like to brag. You know,
20:46 you you know, bragging is very subconscious to men because men like to brag. You know, you get a group of men
20:52 together talking about their work, they all brag. They they inflate their value.
20:57 Where does that come from? It comes from a deep insecurity to seek approval. But
21:02 you don't see it at the moment when your friends are there and you're just mouththing off of what you've been
21:07 doing. You get caught up. It's a subconscious thing. But deep down inside
21:12 there's this desire for approval. Now we can repeat this in many parts of the
21:17 Bible. You heard of Simon the sorcerer. We know that story in Acts. He tried to
21:23 bribe he tried to bribe the apostles to give him the power because he was a
21:28 magician. And where what did Peter tell him? Peter tell him your heart is full
21:35 of bitterness. How did bitterness lead him to try to bribe the apostles? You can't even find
21:41 it. But that's a root. So here's one thing this morning. We all have to sort
21:47 of look deep inside and ask ourselves what drives our actions. Now you don't
21:53 need to be a psychiatrist to do this. You know, I'll tell you scripture tells you very easily how to do this. And if
21:60 we all honest here, we all are driven by many things. insecurity, past pains, pride,
22:07 past hurts, desire to be accepted. We feel life has short changed us. And
22:14 these things drive us on this level at the roots. It comes out in many ways. Here's another one. If you feel life has
22:22 cheated you, quite likely you be very negative. Every time you meet someone, you'll be
22:28 mounting them down. Mouthing them down because there's this root of bitterness. Now, let's try to pick this up a little
22:34 bit. Now, what is Paul saying? What's the root of all of this? Paul is not saying everyone's going to end up like
22:40 Romans 1 because not everyone ends up into sexual depravity. He's giving an illustration. Now, I I
22:47 like to read a lot of comparative religion. For example, you look at Buddhism. You look at the Dharmas of
22:53 Buddha, they are very noble. And Buddha understood that life was
22:59 about suffering. Buddha understood that man was sinful. You know,
23:06 he had enlightenment as he called it. You look at the ying and yang, the tao
23:11 sign is very profound. It's very noble. It's about life is about rest. That's
23:17 the white point. Life is about wrestling. That's what Paul says. Rest in God. Wrestle in God. And there's
23:23 always turning. There are days you wrestle, there are days you rest. And in the point of resting, the black dot, you
23:30 will wrestle. At the point where you're wrestling, there will be rest. It is
23:35 very profound. And life is found in the interface of the two. That's why it's
23:41 called the towel. You know what it means in English? The way
23:46 the Chinese, the Indian cultures long time ago were very very wise. And Paul
23:53 lived in a time of henistic Jews who understood similar philosophies. The
23:58 Stoics were like this. Sineka wrote letters. I read some of the letters and
24:03 a lot of the values of Stoics were very biblical. But there's one big difference. Now, here's again what
24:10 evangelical Christians like to do. We like to say everything outside the church is so just depraved. That's what
24:16 the right in America thinks of the left. They all just morally depraved. That's
24:21 that's stupidity. Don't do that to people out there. There are some Buddhists out there who got
24:27 much better lives than a lot of us in church. But let me tell you what's the big difference what Paul is saying and
24:32 Ephesians picks this up. You see there is enlightenment by yourself and
24:40 enlightenment by God. And the basic difference is this. Ephesians 4, Paul
24:46 talks about how uh the Gentiles have been made foolish by the hardening of
24:51 their hearts. And he says this, he says, "You are to be made new in what? The
24:58 attitude of your mind." Now what is Paul saying? Paul saying all of us our minds
25:04 have an attitude. You know, do you know what is sinful man's attitude? It is an
25:10 attitude which doesn't want God in the center of it. No matter how noble it is,
25:18 no matter how righteous it is. And the moment you put God outside the
25:23 picture, you offend God. And Romans 1 tells you, you take God out of picture,
25:29 right? I'm going to let you think whatever you want is going to go down and down and down. So not all of us may
25:37 be so immoral like what's explained in Romans 1 but we will have certain traits. Let me just develop this a bit
25:45 very old movie young people don't read don't see anymore but is this what you
25:50 should believe versus what you want to believe and you know in Morpheus tells
25:56 uh uh Neo this he takes out two pills one is the red pill and one is the blue
26:01 pill. You take the red pill, you go back to sleep, and you wake up to whatever
26:07 you want to believe. You take the blue pill, you wake up, I show you how deep
26:12 the rabbit hole goes. And the movie is very fascinating because the movie has a very simple
26:18 uh intention. Reality is either the real truth or reality is what you choose to
26:25 believe. Now here's the challenge with all of us because all of us choose to believe many
26:31 things. You either believe what you want to believe or what you should believe.
26:37 Simple example uh few weeks ago I did a I did a school and
26:45 I I went in to photograph a school I did. You're not allowed to photograph schools because they're kids because they don't like their kids to be taken
26:52 photographs of. So I went in there when no one was around cuz I knew I wasn't supposed to do it and I took photographs
26:58 and the receptionist came and scolded me. How can you take photograph? The kids around. I scolded her back. Like I
27:06 said my my worship is compartmentalized. I'm the architect. You know how can you sc me? I know I did this building. You
27:11 know me I talk a lot. I just badgered her. Say do you know I know this. I know the headmaster. I know the she
27:17 walked off and I took photographs and I was very proud of myself. And later on the project manager came to
27:24 me and said what do you just do on I took photograph she was very rude to me you know she scolded me this is my thing
27:29 I didn't know that's a lie but at that moment I didn't see it as a
27:34 lie I went back and my wife knew that I had to pray I said did I do what was wrong
27:41 and every fiber of being wanted to justify what I did was right
27:47 you you see where we're going it's very common thing right but when I paused I said you know much. She was just doing a
27:53 job and I knew deep down inside I was trying to find an opportunity to photograph
27:59 something which I wasn't supposed to because I needed it for my career and against all odds I text back the
28:07 project manager and says I need to apologize to your receptionist. You know how difficult it was to do a
28:13 simple thing like that. Now let me translate that to anything.
28:18 Think of the last time you had an argument. What's the easiest thing to believe? The
28:23 other person is wrong. Ma correct. You fight your wife. Wife wrong.
28:29 Fight your colleague. Correct. Wrong. Ma. It takes a lot of courage to pull
28:34 yourself down and says, you know what? I may be wrong. But here's what the gospel does. The gospel allows you to be honest
28:44 with yourself. Why? Because the grace allows you to know yourself better. I'm
28:51 a sinner. I need to repent. I glorify God when I repent. These are my fruits.
28:57 This is my living sacrifice. And it's always the little little things you do.
29:02 That is worship. Not this big showy showy things we do in church. So it's
29:08 always a case of what you should believe versus what you want to believe. Now how
29:13 do we break this down? Okay. And Romans 2 picks up another group of people. And
29:18 you can imagine the Jews reading Romans 1. They say, "Oh, sinful man. Oh, I'm
29:24 not like that. I'm I'm circumcised, brother. I'm circumcised. I I go to the temple. I'm not like this pagans." And
29:32 Paul flips it. If you read Romans 2, and first thing he does is he just goes after them. Romans 2 opens with a bang.
29:39 You therefore have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else. And we can list down what they do. And again we
29:46 list the root. The root again is the same thing. Stubbornness and unrepentant
29:51 heart. Ephesians 3 calls it the hardening of the heart. This is when the mind and heart happens. And these are
29:58 religious people. So to put it, these are like Christians. You know, Christians are who are so proud they
30:05 become judgmental. They become hypocritical. They are thieves. Don't say we don't do this. We cheat all our
30:12 taxes and we only concern on Sunday when we come to FBC to look good. Now here
30:19 why this particular chapter is interesting is because chapters one and two are side by side. They're the ying
30:25 and the yang. They both say the same thing. One is to Gentiles, one is to the religion. One is to the liberal left and
30:33 the other one is to the right to use American politics. Okay. But here is what's fascinating about this and I
30:39 think this is very indictful for us. What is Paul saying and I want to propose to you all of us suffer from
30:47 this in varying degrees. If you're religious you suffer from this. It's
30:52 called a double life. You see Romans 1 is the ultimate
30:58 liberal. I don't care. Yeah. I do all of this so I have nothing to hide because I
31:04 don't give a damn. Literally, I don't give a damn. But Romans 2 is on the church people.
31:12 Oh, if you only knew Arnold did this, you only knew so and so did this. Can
31:19 they know if if they only knew I came to church but for the last 30 years I did that? So there's a double life. Now this
31:25 is interesting because what Paul is saying is this. The Pharisee had two minds. He had a public self and a hidden
31:33 self. The person you wish everyone to see, that's the one that comes to church on
31:39 Sunday. The hidden self is the one that's behind closed door. But there's a
31:44 third person. And it's the third person where you discover where your weaknesses
31:49 are. And it's this third person which most of us want to shut our doors with.
31:54 And if you can unlock and discover this third person, you discover where your
32:00 roots are, your roots of sin. You know what the third person is? is the defensive self
32:06 is the person who reacts to protect the hidden self. Now, the scripture support
32:11 this. I'm telling you, scripture supports this so much
32:17 because scripture wasn't written as a psychological textbook, but there's so many examples of it. I'm just going to
32:22 give you two, but they're all over the Bible. Let's the most obvious was the Pharisee Jesus.
32:29 There was the public self. They were the religious, right? Very popular, pray at the street corner. But
32:36 the hidden self, Jesus calls them lovers of money and power was the defensive
32:42 self. It was the ones that accused Jesus because that's the only way they could deflect it.
32:49 Now, here's a very simple thing. You know, whenever people ask us things
32:56 and we get worked up and you don't know why you get worked up, instinctively there's a trigger.
33:03 that's the area you got to work on. Or someone's talking about a certain
33:09 topic and suddenly you want to shift that topic. That's the area you got to work on.
33:17 Now that's painful. But that's gospel reality.
33:22 That's the trigger mechanism that because you're trying to conceal this area nobody wants to. So let's just we
33:28 have a conversation. And suddenly conversation goes to money and you know you've been doing things which are
33:35 regarding money that have been wrong. You get uncomfortable. What's the first instinctive thing you want to do? You
33:41 shift the conversation. Now you keep doing that it becomes habit. And you keep coming to church and
33:48 be very active in church it becomes habit. You become that tree where you're active in church but you're continuing
33:55 on being dishonest with God. That's not a renewed mind.
34:01 And brothers and sisters, we all suffer from this. Let me give you another more classic
34:07 example how deep this goes. And the best example how this is on the subconscious
34:13 level, why this is really the iceberg below, why these are the roots is King
34:18 David. What was the public persona of King David? Righteous king.
34:25 What was the private person? Very very horny. Love women.
34:32 What was the defensive self? He had a manipulative streak to cover his tracks.
34:39 He would stop at nothing including murder. The king, you know. And when
34:45 Nathan comes to him and gives him a story of two people, he can't see it.
34:51 His righteous side takes over and gets very righteously angry. Who is this person? And Nathan says, "You are the
34:60 man." Now, I I didn't say, like I said this morning, I didn't say it was going to be
35:06 pleasant. I do this to myself and I like to urge you this morning by
35:12 the power of the gospel. We all have sides we need to pull out. There is root
35:20 and there is fruit. There is cause and there is symptom. Do
35:26 not deal with the symptom. Whatever your sins are, look at your root. Here's another one for all guys.
35:34 A lot of sexual sin comes from hurt in the past. The need to dominate because
35:41 you were battered. So that comes out in this kind of really w thinking that
35:47 needs to abuse women because all sexual sin is abuse of women.
35:53 So what churches do is they they hammer you there. You know, they don't teach
35:58 you to respect women. You get to the root of it and you learn to respect women. You find this sin doesn't
36:05 struggle you so much. Now this this we could repeat this with many things with money, with jealousy, with bitterness.
36:13 But get to the root. And David's root was flesh. And he carried it on to his
36:20 son. and his son had the same problem but 10 times worse with Solomon and that
36:27 caused his downfall. So here's the thing back again causes symptoms. Now why is that important?
36:34 Because if you look at a kid and if a kid had a trauma and he was
36:39 young you didn't love the kid something happened.
36:45 He felt nobody loved him. Later on, very likely he'll get depressed.
36:52 So sin doesn't just happen to us. Sin happens to others. And he is where the
36:57 gospel tells us, gospel family, we look out for one another.
37:03 And in this congregation, there will be some of us where things happen in the
37:09 past and we bury it away. And I want to urge you this morning. I'm not asking you to come and see me or
37:15 Caroline or anyone. Take this to God because this bearing it away manifests
37:23 itself in many ways which will be very damaging. Look at Romans 1. All they did
37:29 was they hardened their hearts and God gave them over, gave them over, gave
37:34 them over, gave them over. Deal with your roots. How do you know to deal with roots? Find your public self.
37:41 Find your private self. That interface, that's the defense mechanism. You pick that up. You know your issues. You don't
37:48 need to be a psychologist to do this. And then you pray and you take it before
37:53 God. I want you all to absorb this because that's very very very heavy for a Sunday morning. But can I suggest to
37:60 you it is completely liberating. Completely liberating.
38:05 So let me just go to the end. I know this has been a heavy morning. We want to spend some time in healing later on.
38:10 and renewal of the mind begins on the inside out. And we're going to go to the text now which I have not had the chance
38:16 to. Let look at the verse again. And he says this, do not conform any longer to
38:21 the pattern of world, but be transformed. We're now going to go into remedy. Now look at the way Paul frames
38:26 the sentence. He's putting the two side by side. Do not be conformed, which is what is an outside in thing that badges
38:34 you. Do not conform. And uses the word transform. And the Greek word is metamorphos which
38:42 where we get the word metamorphosis as used in two texts. You know what
38:47 these two texts is? Any Bible scholar here without looking at the Bibles can tell me when was this word ever used
38:53 besides Peter who knows everything. It was used at the transfiguration.
38:60 Now what is Paul saying? Because at the transfiguration Jesus shown his glory
39:06 was so much. But did he shine because the sun hit him?
39:11 No. He shone because of inside. Now there's a s similar reference to this in
39:17 the new Jerusalem at the end of revelations because at the end of revelations with the new Jerusalem we
39:24 are told that Jerusalem shone shine. Sorry my English isn't pronunciation is
39:30 not that good. And it said there is no sun because you know the language there is
39:36 quite metaphorical. But there's no river, there's no sun is shone from within. Why? Because Lord God was their
39:43 light. You know what he's saying? He's saying transformation is from the
39:49 inside, not from the outside. Outside matters.
39:55 We're going to go into that in a while. But from the inside. So if you do not want to conform from the outside, you go
40:02 from where? The inside. Or to use the same metaphor, you go and build your
40:08 roots. First you identify the bad roots and now you build your good roots. How
40:14 do we see this? And here's another thing he tells us. He says by the renewing of
40:20 your mind. So if transformation is inside out, how does he do it? The Holy Spirit has another job. The renewing of
40:27 mind. That verse again, that particular word is only used once in Titus 3. I
40:34 can't pronounce the Greek, but it says here in Titus 3, by the washing and regeneration and renewal of the Holy
40:42 Spirit. You can't do this by psychology. You can't do this by psychiatry, although they help. You can't do this by
40:49 selfawareness or meditation. You do this by the power of the Holy Spirit. And
40:55 it's what separates us from everything else. This is the key, the Holy Spirit.
41:00 This is how Romans moves from Romans 7 to8. This is how it tells in Romans 7,
41:06 what a wretched man I am. The things I want to do, I don't. The things I don't,
41:11 I do. And you can debate whether Romans 7 is a Christian or non-Christians. Let's not get into it. It's not a state
41:17 you want to be. Then Romans 8 opens. Therefore, there is now no condemnation in Christ Jesus. And then he goes to the
41:25 mind of the spiritual man. He's set on things above. How he goes to aba father.
41:32 We can even give a one-hour lecture, one hour sermon on that. Go read it. The flow is that way. What is Paul saying?
41:39 The first thing you do, you got to recognize that you and I do things we don't do.
41:45 You say you don't have that problem, you're a liar. Come on, man. Be real.
41:51 You're either denying your sins or in bondage in sin. If you divide the church in half, everybody falls into that
41:56 category. You're either denying it or you're in bondage. We're all in Romans 7. That's my best my understanding of
42:03 scripture because it fits very heavily a lot of scripture. But that's not a state you should be in. You're not supposed to
42:08 be wretched. So 8 opens. There's no condemnation. God's grace saves you.
42:13 You've been bought by the blood of the lamb. That's not enough. Change your mind. How do I change your mind? I go to
42:19 Abba Father. I plead. I fall in love with him. I change my
42:26 heart. I go inside out. And that is lifech changing.
42:32 That is victorious living. Let me just put it in a simple way. This
42:38 is how we normally preach Romans 12:1. Conformity to the world. See you guys on
42:45 social media influencing you. See what you what you watch on the internet, bad
42:51 for you. See all your friends who teach you bad things, bad for you. Sinful desires, bad for you. That's conformity.
42:57 It's correct. Let me show you another conformity we very often miss and is a
43:04 conformity of Romans 2. And I humbly suggest we all have this problem.
43:12 It's called a church culture. I mean, come on, man. Do you really
43:19 really honestly believe the way you behave is because you honestly believe it
43:27 or because your church conditions you to it? Why do you think
43:32 there's so many churches? Each church teaches you many things.
43:38 Now this is important because this I think John Piper said
43:44 this you can have all the fruits peace love joy but the rational for it
43:52 is completely different. So you can appear to be Christian, you can do all
43:57 the Christian stuff, uh serve in church, be nice, be kind, but the roots are
44:03 driving wrong things, you know. And when those roots drive wrong things, a lot of
44:09 things happen. There's a there's a thinking called group thing.
44:15 Group thing is a proposition that when you're in a collective, the collective
44:22 drives your mind to think a certain way is called conformity. This is what Paul
44:27 is saying. Why do you think in North Korea when the our current uh leader's
44:34 father died, I saw the TV, you should see the number of people who cried and
44:39 mourned and they actually believed it. They were really mourning. Nobody put a gun to them, you know.
44:45 You know your history. All us Chinese here with a red book. They believed it.
44:52 There is a way where a church can condition you via music, via group, via
44:60 a preacher who's very good at his words and you feel loved and wanted and and
45:07 wow, but your roots are not there. And I think this is why people fall
45:14 away, you know. So here's the diagram. I
45:19 pray you are not in. And if you are in this diagram, I pray you have the
45:25 courage to talk to someone. Now is I know it's getting very depressing this morning, but it's going to be better at
45:30 the end. Okay, bear with me because painful truths are necessary because if you have any of these things that below
45:36 your you have doubts, your hurts from the past, you you have you know a double
45:42 life and I'll tell you most people have this in varying degrees and you are in a church that gives you all these things
45:48 is a deadly combination is a very deadly combination.
45:54 Why? Because one day a storm would happen. The storm could be a little bit. It could be a financial issues and you
46:03 say, "All right, I'll get on there." Then the storm gets bigger, you know, financial issue compiled with family
46:09 problems. And then that gets even bigger and temptation comes in and bang,
46:15 all hell breaks loose and your roots are weak. And when the
46:20 storm is over, you just say, "I don't know what to believe anymore." Have you heard of these names? I think
46:28 you may have Peter mentioned this two weeks ago. A woman called Jesse Goolum.
46:33 This has been going along on social media. A guy called Chuck Templeton. What are all these people? They were
46:39 people who were very fervent as Christians. Let's not get into the Calvinist Armenian argument of losing
46:45 your salvation. But they all left the faith. Chuck Templeton was Billy Graham's right-hand
46:52 man. He he was the evangelist that evangelized to stadiums.
46:59 He wrote books. He had a talk show. He went to Princeton Theological College. You know what was his last book? Goodbye
47:07 God. Gave up everything. Didn't believe. And and I think lately I
47:13 think God has been speaking to me in this. And I want to spend a bit of this because I think your eternal soul depends on this. And and lately, God has
47:20 been putting me in touch of people who were very fervent in her faith and left. And I read Jesse Goolam's uh blog, read
47:26 it three times because she got raped. And after she got raped, here's a woman who was a youth pastor, went on a
47:32 mission trip to Ghana, and after she got raped, never recovered. And she wrote a lengthy blog why she think Christianity
47:37 is nonsense. Now, I want you to hear these words because I think it has a lot to do with us. You see, why do they give
47:44 up their faith? Because they're public for you and I. Maybe not me so much. You who sit here, you don't need to do it.
47:50 You just need to sit in church, but you're really like this. You're not sure. You're not sure in your faith.
47:56 It's a very dangerous place to be in. And this is what the devil wants to keep you. And and and I want to tell a hard story.
48:03 I I was with an American not two friends here. You um we had we went on Joho and
48:09 I think I think brother Tiko always you always need to find an opportunity to preach. So I try to share the good news with them. Four hours down to Jehovahuar
48:15 we shed I shared the gospel four hours up and this person I was with was a exson of a minister not exsonant he was
48:23 son of a minister ex son of a minister son of minister
48:29 or sorry son of a minister he knew his bible front and back he could quote CS Lewis he knew the nision council he knew
48:36 everything he was a Sunday school teacher he was quoting scripture to me front and back but he had left the faith
48:44 And four hours down he was trying to deconvert me.
48:49 And sitting on the right hand side was a friend of mine which Jeff knows who
48:55 spent time in Palestine. And he was trying to decon convert me to all the way up. And I prayed all the way
49:00 out. Prayed all the way out. He laid down everything to me. Every reason why he left the faith.
49:07 And I began discover and we won't go into that. I began to discover a common thing. You know, when you read people like the blog or Jesse Goolm or you read
49:15 uh you you can find a Lee Strobels book about why uh you know uh uh Chuck Templeton left the faith you you find a
49:22 common thing. They all had issues. They just buried it inside.
49:27 With Chuck Templeton, it was with evolution. With Jesse Goolan was because she got raped because some people are rational,
49:34 some people emotional. With my friend, it was a hypocrisy of what he called the right in America.
49:41 And he became left after that. He saw the hypocrisy of what he called the Bible belt. Now here's the thing. We all
49:48 struggle with our faith. Some of us struggle with doubt. Some of us struggle with past hurts.
49:55 Some of us struggle with sin. If you bury it inside, your roots are weak.
50:01 They will manifest itself in many dangerous way. And you look very healthy. Remember Chuck Templeton was a
50:08 preacher at stadiums, you know, had his own Christian talk show. And one day
50:13 when the storm comes, you will fall. If you don't fall, you will join the so
50:19 many that come to church, sit at the back, and don't serve. And I plead with you, your eternal soul
50:26 depends on this. Go to the roots.
50:31 Fix it. How do we do that? And here's a bit of the good news before it gets
50:36 depressing. Hide in God. Don't hide in yourself. The first thing
50:43 I want to ask you is this. Paul says, "Do not conform, but be transformed
50:48 inside out." How do you do it? You first you recognize your archilis heel. First
50:56 you recognize your sinful habits. And I tell you that takes great courage.
51:02 How do you know is a sinful problem is when I talk to you and you say I don't want to talk about it. That's that's
51:07 that's your area. Or if I want to talk to you about it, you run away and you find 101 ways to
51:14 conceal that. That's the area you got to deal with. Now, how do you deal with it?
51:19 Here's something simple. No one's asking you to declare it to the world because people like to talk too much, especially
51:25 Asians. You don't know who you can trust. You talk to God. And I don't mean talk to God once. You
51:32 talk and you talk. You talk like Romans 8. You plead Aba Father.
51:37 There is now no condemnation, Lord. But fix me. Let my mind be set on things
51:42 above. You fix me, Lord. You take your doubts. You take your sins. You take your hurts. You take your trauma because
51:49 in childhood someone did bad things to you. You were not loved. Your parents weren't good to you. You take that to
51:55 God. And I tell you, it will change you. He will slowly come in and come in and
52:04 aba father that's Romans 8. You go to him he will feed you and he would
52:09 embrace you. And that's what the Holy Spirit does. It works at the heart and
52:15 the heart won't be so hardened. The heart is receptive. You think I'm a
52:20 preacher here. I have all the answers. You think I don't have doubts. I'll be a hypocrite to tell you that. But my faith
52:27 is steadfast enough that I can take a 4-hour trip to Joho, borrow it and up with two 80s banging at me. At the end
52:34 of it, I say, "Would you like to come to church on Sunday?" But that's what God wants you to be. You
52:42 work from the inside and you hide in God. And let me challenge you with one thing.
52:49 If you have the courage, talk to someone. You don't need to say too much. I I I
52:55 and I'm very encouraged by the few people who have come up to me and there are people I know very well and they say
53:00 brother Anna I need you to pray and they tell me something and they had a look like you didn't think it was me right
53:08 you didn't think that you that you knew me for 15 years that I had this problem right it was my job my job is not to
53:14 judge my job to say let's pray not my not my space to judge but the fact that
53:20 you asking me to pray we all pray and after a while you do that you find a lot of people have similar issues. That's
53:26 step two. First, you pray yourself. Find someone to pray with. I plead with
53:32 you. Now, here's the thing. When we do this, sometimes I pray over someone who revealed to me some things he's very
53:38 ashamed of. Next time he see me on the other side, he turns the other way.
53:43 I can't blame that person because he he's worried I'm going to judge him. I'm not.
53:48 I'm not. It's not my place. Because he's worried that I'm going to ask him, "How's it going? Are you are you moving
53:53 on? No, I'm getting worse. He's afraid I'll do that. So, he walks away. Don't do that. Your eternal soul depends on
54:00 it. Praying with someone does a lot of things because God honors. God is honored. That's how you That's your
54:06 worship to God. So, I'm going to plead with you that doesn't take too much. Find someone to
54:13 pray with. You don't need to be too graphically detailed if you have a struggle or you have a hurt in the past,
54:19 but pray. locking it inside yourself is deadly dangerous. Your fruits will not
54:25 face the storm. Thirdly, if you got the courage, join a small group. One of the best thing I did
54:32 was to join a men's group by Harold. Here's a horrifying group. Ask Harold
54:38 because the things they discuss there are so disturbing, but it is so liberating because in our men's group,
54:44 we discuss everything no holds bar. But we hold a covenant. Nothing leaves that
54:51 group. Nothing. And when you do that, you go home, you
54:56 drive. Hey, I thought I was a wretched sinner. I find Harold's also a wretched sinner. Hallelujah. Actually, he's a
55:02 much more godly man than me. But you find that, hey, I thought I was such a
55:08 bad Hey, Sassy is just as bad as me. Actually, he's better than me. But oh, hallelujah. Hey, take as bad as me.
55:14 You're not alone. You know, you think you're alone because the devil whispers to you, if they only knew who you are,
55:20 you're going to go to hell. You know, you're a leader of the church, you did this, you're going to go to hell.
55:27 They find you gathered together, you also got a problem. Oh, hallelujah, Lord. Wait a minute. That doesn't give
55:33 you a license to sin. We're going to work at our sin. That's why we gather together. So, what am I saying? Inside
55:39 out is not enough. You got to go outside in. You need to have scripture. You need to
55:46 have friends. You need to be aware of the the effects of sin. So this is how the Holy Spirit works. You go from
55:51 inside out and you go from outside in. And when you do that, I tell you brothers and sisters, your life will be
55:58 set free and you will prospers like the mustard seed and you would have fruits.
56:05 So here's the three things. Difficult morning. I challenge you to see whether
56:11 what I said is biblical. Let me just end with two things. One, transformation is not an overnight
56:17 process. You will be fighting sin to the day you die. So if some of you say,
56:23 "Brother Anno, I tried this. I struggled. All I keep telling you, keep at it because that honors God. That's
56:29 worship." And lastly, let me just show you a picture at typing as I asked the
56:34 worship team to come up. And this is one of the most interesting pictures to me because the tree wants
56:43 the water so much it pushes itself down to the lake. Everyone knows, most of us
56:49 know this photo, but it is against all odds. It touches the water.
56:55 And here's our starting point. Cling to Christ. And as you cling to
57:01 Christ, as you really cling, he is the vine. You are the branch. And he will
57:08 lead you through the dark night of your soul. And that dark night can be long. It can
57:15 be months. It can be years. But he will heal you.
57:21 And he'll take you to places and he will not dream of. And he will
57:26 heal you and restore you. Amen. I know it's been a hard morning. We're
57:33 going to do two songs. The first one is what I apologize to brother Sam. What was that song again? I even forgot.
57:39 Refine his fire. You see how bad I am. I want us to spend a bit of time in reflection. I'm not
57:45 going to do an alter call. I want us to sing and as we sing I pray that God spirit just works over you. So let's
57:51 let's do this seated on the first song and then and I'm going to pray over this
57:58 and ask that God just heals us if we have wounds. Shall we shall we take away the first song and we're going to do two songs today as God heals us?
58:07 So, let just calm down and let us just come to God in prayer first.
58:12 Lord, we ask we uh ourselves and uh prepare our hearts for a time of
58:20 worship. And Lord, we ask that you just move within us and and and and and restore
58:26 our roots. That we can be a tree that has the fruits of the spirit.
58:32 That therefore now we just recognize there's no condemnation, no condemnation for those of us in Christ.
58:40 And Lord, we ask that you refine us with that grace, that grace that that just shifts us forward, that you purify us.
58:46 Oh Lord, teach us to recognize our faults, our sins, our doubts. And right
58:51 now we ask Aba Father you come and comfort us. We ask oh Lord for your real presence to surround us as we sing this
58:58 song and we say it in Jesus name.
