True Repentance

Thank you, family! That was beautiful! I wasn't expecting to hear you guys. That was really nice. In fact, Paul and I were talking on the way over. We should have got something together, and we didn't.

In fact, you guys didn't even know we were going to be here. I was supposed to call them earlier this week, and I didn't. So it's good to see you guys and really appreciate the music.

That is a beautiful song. And after the words to that song and Mr. Arneson's sermonette, I guess that's said at all. Maybe I don't need to speak at all. We can just appreciate the music and the beautiful words we've heard, and they are wonderful. Well, thanks. I really enjoyed that. Good morning, everyone. It is great to see all of you. I haven't got to say hi to everyone yet, but it is good to be here.

We were trying to think how long it's been, and I was reminded of that last week. We had been over at Ellendale last Sabbath, helping the Nelsons celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary, and we had been there when they celebrated their 25th. And one wise guy brought a picture over of one of their albums from the day we celebrated their 25th anniversary. They said, look, here's Lloyd and Norma and you. It's like, wow, look at that.

They said Lloyd and Norma look exactly the same. I'll tell you. So time has changed some of us a little more than others, but it is good to be here. Good to see all of you, and nice to be back. It's been a little while, hasn't it? A lot is going on, and things are hectic as usual. Someone was asking a little bit about Beyond Today, and we're asking what channels we were on, and I had no idea.

I don't take care of that part of things, but it is on the Word Network, so I did look that up. I think Julia was asking me, or maybe maybe Mel D was asking me, yeah, about that. So it's on the Word Network. If you can get the Word Network, it is on Time Warner. So do you have Time Warner cable here or not? Or maybe, I know some areas do, some don't. Some get DirecTV.

It is on DirecTV, but I couldn't possibly tell you what channel that would be, but the Word Network is on DirecTV, so you can check that out. Of course, if you're really high-tech and have things like Roku or even a Wii or, what else, Xbox, you can stream it live or stream it on those different devices as well. So that's possible. There is a Beyond Today channel on Roku, so you can look that up.

In fact, we had a lady come to services a couple weeks ago in Cincinnati. She said, I had a day off and I didn't have anything to do, and I was scrolling through my Roku, and I went to the religious section, and there was Beyond Today, so I watched an episode. And then she said, seven hours later, she binge-watched Beyond Today. She's like, I don't know how you could do that.

I don't think I could do that. And I recorded those things. And then she showed up at church the next Sabbath, so I was like, wow, that's pretty good. And she's been hanging in here for over a month, so that's pretty encouraging to see that. So yeah, you can catch it on that. And of course, it's always on the web. You get on the web, beyondtoday.tv. All the episodes are there. They're all on YouTube as well, so you can watch all of those things on YouTube. So it's been interesting. A couple of weeks here lately, we had to record some new programs, not last week, the week before already. And I had gotten my script all done last minute, as usual.

I was telling John, if it weren't for the last minute, I wouldn't get anything done. But last minute, writing that script the night before. Well, trying to finish it up. And we had been down on the street recording interviews, and I just didn't have time to finish it. So you got to go through and listen to all the people that you've talked to and try to figure out what fits and what doesn't fit and if it can work at all.

So I said, ah, forget it. I'll just write it without any of the interviews. So I presented it in the morning as we were going through our script review before recording it. I said, you know, it really would be a lot better if you had those interviews in there.

Great. So then that night I went back and went through it all, got them all in there. And it reminded me some of those interviews are just hilarious the way they work out and you talk to people. Some people say, well, are they ready? Are they willing to talk to you when you go out there? It is really funny. People will talk to you. Of course, they see a camera and they think, well, what's going on over here? And they'll come over and kind of kind of eavesdrop a little bit of what you're doing and things like this. There was this one lady. She is kind of, I could kind of see her in the background. She was kind of hovering as I was talking to this one person. And I finished talking to her. She came right up. She said, well, what are you doing here? So we're recording some interviews, getting people's opinions on a couple of topics for our television program. Oh, she said, really? Can I talk? I said, okay, sure. So before I could even ask her a question, she just started talking. And she said, well, I'm an artist here on Cincinnati. She just went on and on. And it's like, can I ask you a question? Finally got a question in there. And it was just really interesting. In fact, one time I was talking to the, I was asking some people about three days and three nights. I don't know if you saw that particular program. That one always strikes me pretty funny because I was talking to this one lady and she said, once I asked her a question about crucifixion, she said, no, you really need to talk to my sister. She knows the Bible a whole lot better. You need her. But she tried to answer and she said, well, I know I wasn't much help. Maybe you need to talk to a minister or somebody else. So off she went and I'm talking to another person. We're down on the square in Cincinnati. And all of a sudden I hear from the far reaches of the other corner of the square, here's who you need to talk to. And this lady comes back with a Catholic priest. And I said, would you like to talk to me? And he said, sure. So then I interviewed him and that was very interesting. Of course, then we had to use him on the program and we had to use that passage about in vain, do they worship me, you know, for the traditions of men.

So you never know what people are going to say. And they'll be so honest and straightforward with you. It is really amazing. So we don't, I don't coax them or anything. And I've never gotten an argument with anybody or anything like that. Maybe threatened it a couple of times. But no, it's always been very interesting. And it's recently, it's been more interesting because we did this last program, more about world conditions. There had been a police shooting in Cincinnati about a month ago. And so we were down on the street talking to people about just world conditions. And it is on people's minds how bad it is out there with all the things with ISIS and the difficulties in the economy and what's going on in Greece. And then with the shooting in Cincinnati and the number of violent things like in Charlotte and the difficulties that have been going on, people, I asked them, can you describe what it's like maybe in one word? And it was really interesting listening to all the ways that people describe the world conditions as they are today. Whether it was chaotic was a big word that came up a number of times. Sensless, out of control.

And you listening to people, you know, frame the way they see the world. And they're not particularly religious people. And so it was just really interesting. So a lot of material we're able to use for an upcoming program on that. And so people are getting it. They recognize that this just can't keep going on the way that it has. And so we'll see where it goes from here. And I think as things get more and more out of control, people will turn hopefully to God to try to find some answers to things. So it's been an interesting time as we've been recording the program.

It's also been busy with ABC, even though we're a little off right now with the summertime. ABC is over with for this year, which is always a welcome feeling for a moment. Catch our breath over the summertime a little bit. I kind of help out more with some instruction. At ABC, I teach the Epistles of Paul, which means all the letters that Paul wrote. So I teach those as well as the former prophets. Former prophets kind of entail Joshua, Judges, 1 Samuel, and the Kings as well. So cover that. Some of the best stuff in the Bible, best stories in the Bible, get to teach those kinds of things, which is always a lot of fun. And then we're starting a new class this year. We're trying to try to make it more relevant to the students that are coming in. And we've got students of all ages trying to prepare them. And you know, God's put a lot of expectations on all of us as His people. And I think one of the most interesting aspects of trying to learn God's way is not so much learning it, but defending the truth. This seems to be the time that we've got to be able to defend the truth. So we're starting a new class. Well, I just decided to do it. And they approved it, which was great. It's called an apologetics class. Apologetics is basically defending the faith. Not that you're apologizing for the faith, but that you're learning how to defend the truth. And so we're going to be going through that this entire year, over several hours a week, that we'll be looking at that. So I'm kind of excited about that. It's still got to get some preparation done and get ready for the class itself. But looking forward to that. That way, we can spit out why we believe what we believe, especially in the times that we're facing. We have to be able to do that because we've been there before. We've been there at a time when people came up with new arguments that we hadn't really heard before. And how did... well, maybe they're right. Could they be right? I don't have to keep the Sabbath anymore. You know, what about these kinds of things?

Well, we've got to be able to defend why we believe what we believe. So looking forward to that particular class. And this year, it looks like it'll be an interesting one. We've got quite a few older students that are coming in. Older, I mean, 60s or so. So that'll kind of round out the class. There won't be all youngins right out of high school or right out of college either. So that will be encouraging. In fact, we've got a couple of new things coming up here at the end of the summer as well. You've probably been following a little bit along with some of the announcements. I think Mr. Shriver sent some of those out that we've hired a number of new people, some young people into the ministers as trainees. And so at the end of August, there's going to be two weeks of training for the new hires. We're kind of calling it boot camp. And so before they're sent out for their assignments, they're going to be coming in. And somehow I got roped into some of this. So we'll be teaching a part of that as well. There is kind of a separation. I'm not in the administration at the home office. I have nothing to do with the administration itself. I'm on the lower level of the home office. They're on the upper level. So I tease them about that. They're a little bit closer to God up at the higher levels of the home office. They're on the second floor.

So I tease them about that. But as you know, it's been a very busy time with a lot going on. A lot of exciting things happening as well, not only with the program, with ABC, with these new hires. I mean, we've got to train a younger ministry. I mean, none of us are getting any younger. And it's sad to say that sometimes people like Mr. Trevor and myself, we're looked at as the younger guys.

That's pretty sad. Right? And so we have to train some younger people. And so it's nice to see that we're finally taking some steps. We've been talking about this since the United Church of God began. So it's nice to see that there are some new hires and getting ready to pass it on to some younger generations. So that is encouraging to see that. One of the other things that we've been doing you probably heard about the Why Were You Born seminars that we had. We had a couple of those in Cincinnati. One particularly where Mr. Petty did a presentation for people that we encouraged, we invited, we advertised to to come and check us out. And so we had about, I'm trying to remember now, it was, can't remember exactly when that was. It was, I think, it was just after the Holy Days that we did that one. And I think we had four, three, four hundred people that came to that presentation. And we're going to continue some of those kinds of things. You may have heard that this coming fall there's going to be some presentations that are done in Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas. We're going to change things up a little bit. Daris McNeely, Gary Petty, and I will be going down. They're calling them personal appearance campaigns, where we're going to be trying to promote not only the listeners of Beyond Today, but also those that are subscribers to the Good News to actually come and listen to a message. And it'll basically be about, you know, why were you born, and try to encourage them to seek the truth and kind of talk about world conditions and where are we at and where's all this leading. And so we'll have to see how that all turns out. But it's a way of preaching the gospel, and hopefully those that are God-fearers out there, there are a lot of God-fearers out there. We may not recognize it, especially in a world today where, you know, the Supreme Court passes their undue decision on marriage and all these kinds of things. But there are a lot of people who do fear God. They don't know the truth, but they have, you know, there's a glimmer of hope there. Almost like when you read through the book of Acts, there were a lot of God-fearers that the apostle Peter and Paul talked to that eventually were converted. And so we're kind of seeking those people out, those that are listeners, those that are reading, those that are tuned into the Bible, that hopefully they'll come and take that big step to walk in the door and show up and hopefully learn a little bit more. So we're doing these promotional things down in Houston right after the feast. So Houston, San Antonio, and Dallas. It's at the end of October. So you're proud to be hearing, had you heard about that at all yet? Maybe not, or maybe a little bit.

So that's going to be coming up. So we're getting our presentations together. It'll be a live presentation, as well as throwing in some video and different things to keep people's attention and that sort of thing. So it's exciting. It's a different way to bring that gospel out to people. And so we're hoping that that'll be one more way that hopefully will generate a way to preach the gospel, a way to draw people that God is calling. And that's really what it's all about.

Let me think if there's something else I was going to say about that particular thing. I think that was about it. You probably don't know that I've kind of been handicapped being in Cincinnati. I made a big mistake last Sabbath. Well, no, the Sabbath before already was at Sabbath services. And I was telling someone there that we're kind of excited because we're going to be able to go up to Minnesota and Wisconsin. And I made the mistake of saying, yeah, we're going back home. He looked at me and said, don't you live here? Like, oh, yeah, I guess so. But it still kind of feels like home back there. We were there a long time. So I have to be careful when I say things like that a little bit more. It's just different. Cincinnati is so different.

They do not get Ollie and Lena jokes. They don't get them. It just doesn't work there. It doesn't work at all. Not quite the same. So I thought, well, maybe I could change it up a little bit. And maybe then they, you know, maybe just change the names, change the scenario, and I could still use the same jokes. I tried hillbillies, and that doesn't work. That Cincinnati is right on the border of Kentucky, and we have many Kentucky members. And that is that's derogatory to them. That's that is not a good thing. Politically incorrect. Can't do that. So I guess it's okay Ollie and Lena's okay. We make fun of ourselves, but they don't want to hear it down there.

So I'm not quite sure. So once in a while I'll say, well, there was this guy, and it's okay, but it just doesn't feel the same. So it's been a struggle that way to try to adapt a little bit more to Cincinnati. So it's been been a little bit different. Let's see here. I could tell the joke, and Mr. Henry could finish it for me. So that's always kind of nice, you know, and you can do that. Or people will laugh just because, oh yeah, that's a good one. I've heard that one before, but I do like that one. It's good to hear that one again. So sometimes, well, like my dad used to say, I don't tell these jokes to make you laugh just to refresh your memory. That's the way it was. So we do that sometimes as well. While I'm thinking about that, you've probably heard that Ollie went to the doctor because he was having some trouble. So they did a brain scan. Did a brain scan, and Ollie and the doctor said to Ollie, you know, Ollie, I've got some bad news for you. He said, first, we've discovered that your brain has two sides. You've got the left side and the right side. And Ollie said, whoa, wait, wait, that's normal, right? I thought everybody has two sides to their brain. So that's normal, right? The doctor said, well, Ollie, that's true, but your brain? Very unusual. He said, because on the left side, there's nothing right. And on the right side, there's nothing left. So that's it.

See, you get that. You might not laugh, but you at least get it.

Now I'm feeling like I'm back in Cincinnati. I don't know. But when you think about your brain, think about all the thoughts that you have. I was reading an article a while back and it said it was trying to sort out how many thoughts that you have a day. How many thoughts do you think you have per day? This article, guesstimated somewhere around 90,000 thoughts come into our brain every single day. I mean, that's like a thought every single second, 86,000 seconds in a day. Every second, thoughts are coming into our brains. And so when you begin to consider that, you know, maybe you could think, are you thinking what I'm thinking? That I think that you think I'm thinking, because if you think that I think what you're thinking, what I'm thinking, then we've got a problem. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? That's what God says to us, doesn't he? Does God say to us, are you thinking what I'm thinking? You know, there is that passage in Isaiah, Isaiah 55. In fact, maybe we should turn over there. I wrote it down. Isaiah 55 verse 7. Kind of a serious passage here, but it zeroes right in to the way we think. Isaiah 55 verse 7, it says, let the wicked forsake his way, the unrighteous man his thoughts. So it deals right with how we think. So the wicked think, the unrighteous think, but Isaiah reminds him, or reminds us, he says, let him return to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and our God, for he will abundantly pardon. Now here's the interesting part. Verse 8, he says, my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord, for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. In other words, I think God is saying, are you thinking what I'm thinking?

Because that's the goal that he set in front of us. We are supposed to think like God. And so God says this is the need. Number one, the need. How important is it to think like God thinks? Well, you know, he actually says we have to. We have to. We could say that it's a command. So if we had to come down to the point to say, is there a need to think what God thinks?

You know, am I thinking like God thinks? Well, maybe it's not really that important. Or is it? I mean, God actually commands us to think like he does. I think we're all familiar with Deuteronomy 6, where it says, Hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Remember that section of Scripture? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. That's Deuteronomy 6.4. The Jews call it the Shema, the Lord, right? Hero Israel.

But what's interesting about that? Christ quoted that same section of Scripture in the New Testament. But He said it just a little bit different. Look over at Mark 12, verse 28. Mark 12, 28. Christ who inspired Deuteronomy 6.4 quotes it here in Mark 12. He also says the same thing in Matthew and Luke as well. Mark 12, 28 is the one I'll turn to, though. Mark 12, 28. Here's Christ quoting that particular passage, but let's see if you notice the difference. See, we notice something a little bit different here, and it points right to the need for us to change our thinking. To think what God's thinking. Mark 12, 28. Here, one of the scribes came to Christ. Having heard them reasoning together, perceiving that He had answered them well, He asked. So He asked Jesus, which is the first commandment of all? Well, guess what Christ answered? Deuteronomy 6.4. He says the first of all the commandments is, Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Verse 30. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. This is the first commandment. Do you notice what was different?

He added, With all your mind, with all your mind.

He says that there is an absolute need to change our minds.

You know, how often do we change our minds? He says we have to. We have to change our minds.

In fact, when you think, how am I supposed to do that? How can I fulfill the need that God's laid out before me and change my thinking, change my mind?

There's an interesting passage in Ezekiel 18, verse 30. Ezekiel 18, 30, as Ezekiel was prophesying to ancient Israel, he zeroes in on how to do that, how to make this need a reality, how to change our thinking. So we'll get just a little bit of insight into how we do that. Ezekiel 18, 30 says, Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, everyone according to his ways, says the Lord God. God is going to judge Israel. He's going to judge us as spiritual Israel as well. And so what does he tell us to do? Well, instead of saying, think like I think, or your thoughts better be like my thoughts, he says here at the end of verse 30, repent and turn from all your transgressions so that iniquity will not be your ruin. And he goes on, cast away from you all the transgressions which you've committed. Get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit, for why should you die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of the one who dies, says the Lord God. Therefore turn and live.

So he says the key is repentance. The key is to repent. Now, if somebody said, what's repentance? If I'm supposed to change my thinking, if my thoughts are supposed to be God's thoughts, and he tells me there's a need to do this, I better be able to define what exactly that means. So let's think about that for a second. If you like points number two, how do I define repentance? If I had to map it out and say, this is what repentance is, you might say, well, I'm walking down the road and all of a sudden I recognize I'm going the wrong way.

And so I turn around 180 degrees and I go back the right way. I go God's way.

Okay. Not necessarily a bad definition. I'm going the wrong way. I want to turn the right way and go God's direction. Yeah, that's true. I certainly want to do that. In fact, in the Old Testament, it kind of refers to that quite a bit to turn back. Oftentimes, it's a similar thought to repent. Now, in the New Testament, it adds a little bit more to it. There's an interesting word that is translated from the Greek to repent. It's called metananeo. It's kind of two words, meta, meta, which means after or afterwards. Meta, noeo, noeo is the way the Greek word is spelled.

Nueo is the word mind, referring to your brain, right, the side that only had nothing right and then nothing left, right? The mind. So why would metananeo, afterwards your mind, have anything to do with repentance? It literally means to perceive with your thinking afterwards or to think again, to rethink something, changing, in other words, the way I used to think, right? I'm changing my mind from the way it was before to God's way afterwards. So repentance has to do with changing the way that we think. You really get down to it, you boil it all down. The mind is at the key to repentance. And when you look at this particular Greek word, that's exactly what it's talking about. Repentance deals with the way we think. Now, of course, having godly sorrow, yes, of course, changing your mind, turning from sin, all of those things. You put all those things together, that's what repentance is all about. Changing your mind normally because God props us, nudges us, pushes us, maybe sometimes shoves us into rethinking things, maybe regretting the way we used to be. Maybe I did something that I regret, my past conduct, my past actions, and it's going to produce a change. It's going to change what I do. It's going to change my actions away from the things that were wrong, from sinful into doing things God's way. But where does it start?

You see, where it starts is where we think. It starts with a different thought process.

And so it has to do with changing the way that we think. So when God says, my thoughts aren't your thoughts, we have to repent. We have to change the way we think so that we will think differently. And when we think differently, what's that going to do to our actions? Well, our brain, that controls my hands, it controls my feet, it controls what I say.

It's going to be different. My actions are going to be different. And so repentance is clearly that. He commands us to change the way that we think. Now, we're probably all familiar with the Peanuts comic strip. Right? Everybody knows Charlie Brown and Linus and, oh, I was very disappointed. I heard the Mall of America dump Charlie Brown. He's out, you know, I think there's somebody else there now. Who is it? Somebody tell me. Oh, it's Nickelodeon. Yeah, they got rid of Snoopy and the whole, it's not Snoopy, Parker, whatever it is anymore. Now it's something else. But anyways, I was reminded of this the other day when they were telling me that Mall of America is different. I remember reading this little comic strip, you know, about Lucy and Charlie Brown. You remember Lucy always loved to hold the football for Charlie Brown? And you know what she would do every time he'd run up to kick that thing, right? Well, this one comic strip, Lucy is begging Charlie Brown to come and kick the football. Charlie Brown, he finally was wiser, right? He said, well listen, Lucy, every time I try to kick the ball, you move it and I fall flat on my back. And they went back, oh, come on, Charlie Brown, you need to give it a try again. He said, oh, you never hold it there, you always pull it back. Well then finally, Lucy kind of broke down. Tears began to flow. And she said, oh, Charlie Brown, I've been just so terrible to you over the years. I picked up that football, I just don't know, countless times. I know I've done that and I've done so many cruel tricks on you and I've seen the error of my ways. I've seen that hurt look in your eyes. I've deceived you.

And she said, I've been so wrong, won't you just please try to kick the football one more time? Give me another chance. So she held that football, looked up at Charlie Brown and he thought, okay, well, might as well give it one more chance. So Charlie Brown gets back and he runs full speed at that ball. And guess what Lucy does, right? The boy's going to kick that thing, holding out of the way, bam, right on his back. You know what Lucy said? Lucy said, recognizing your faults and actually changing your ways are two different things, Charlie Brown.

Yeah, she recognized the problem. But she didn't change her thinking. She was thinking, she was saying all these things in order to get him, in order to do it all over again.

So we can recognize our faults, right? We can see our sins. But if we don't change our ways, we don't change our thinking, we don't do something about our minds, we're not going to be able to actually change our behavior. And so that is a challenge. It is a challenge because I think there is a distinction. We don't want to make the mistake that the results of repentance or what appears to be repentance itself. I mean, is it possible that there's a difference between those things? The results of what looks like repentance or appears to be repentance and genuine repentance. I mean, what real repentance is all about?

You ever have a problem judging by appearances? Is that an issue? It is an issue. It's the way we all are. We have a tendency to judge by appearances. And of course, God even had to tell Samuel when he was looking for the new king. What did God tell Samuel? Oh, don't look at his appearance.

Right? He said, man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.

So God looks at our heart. He looks at our thinking, our thoughts, our mindset.

Right? And he tells us, your thinking isn't my thinking. You need to change the way that you think. And so we have to be careful because sometimes things can look one way when the reality is something else. So let's think about that for just a moment. Let's think about that. Our actions could say one thing, but what is our motivation? That's a third thing maybe to think about. Our actions versus our inner motivation. Is it possible that two people could do exactly the same thing but have totally different reasons for doing them? Is that possible? Two people could do exactly the same thing but have totally different reasons, totally different motivation for doing it. All right, there is one fact, though. Right motivation will produce right actions.

Right motivation will produce right. Now here's the question, though.

Are right actions always the result of right motivation?

You see the difference of nuance there? Are right actions always the result of right motivation? Now I could be doing something for the wrong reasons and still do something that looks like on the outside, hey, this is right! This is good! This is great! Is that possible? I mean, think about that for just a moment. I mean, think about what are the purposes for Christ's first coming. You think about why Christ came. He said in one instance, Isaiah prophesied that he would magnify the law and make it honorable. If you remember that, that's from Isaiah 42. Isaiah 42.21 is where Christ was prophesied about magnifying the law and make it honorable.

Of course, in Matthew 5 also talks about the fact that, hey, don't think that I've come to destroy the law, but I've come to fulfill it or to magnify it or give it its true meaning.

Christ was pointing to the fact, what is the law all about? Could people follow the law but do it for the wrong reasons? Christ said, hey, there's right reasons for doing these things. So what did Christ say? Think about that for a moment. Christ said, well, just because you don't commit adultery doesn't mean you're keeping the law, right? He said, wait a second, what are you thinking? What are you thinking about? Your mind has to be controlled so that you're not lusting after somebody else. That can't be doing. Is it okay? Well, God, I haven't killed anybody lately, so I've been keeping your law. Well, wait a second. That's not good enough. Okay, the outward action is okay. There's nothing wrong with that. But Christ says, hey, control your mind and don't be angry. Don't hate anyone. Not killing or not committing adultery itself doesn't prove that you're repentant. It doesn't prove that at all. In fact, if you fast forward a little bit to Acts 2, we're at the day of Pentecost. At the day of Pentecost, God's Spirit is poured out. We know the story. Peter talks and gives this big sermon. And if you remember, who is the audience that he's speaking to? Speaking to Jews that have come from all over in order to keep the feast. And these were Jews who did what? Well, they kept the Sabbath. They tithed. They didn't eat pork.

We could say they kept the Ten Commandments. But did any of that prove they were repentant?

No, because we know Acts 2.38 says, repent! That was his first instruction that he gave them.

When they finally said, they saw, they heard, they recognized Christ was the Savior, they asked Peter, what are we supposed to do? And the first thing he says is, repent and be baptized. He said they had to repent. And so he told them very clearly then that God was most concerned about their inward motivation, not their outward appearance, not the outward requirements, but what was going on on the inside. What was happening inside? And so the difficulty then is we have to kind of turn the mirror around and look at ourselves. You know, when it comes to me, you know, why am I doing what I do? What's the purpose behind it? Why do I keep the Sabbath?

You know, why am I doing the things that I just doing the right thing of and by itself isn't enough? I mean, would it be fair to say Sabbath keeping is meaningless to God?

Could if that if we're just doing it because we're looking good, we want to look good. Why do we tithe? Why do we do these things? Is it an expression of our love and our devotion to God? Or is it just so that I can get a tax deduction?

Is it just because I want to look good in front of other people?

You see, those are right actions that aren't necessarily a reflection of a changed mind.

But if our mind is, if our thinking is different, then it takes on tremendous significance. Then it matters the most because when you really get down to it, repentance is something that you cannot see. You cannot see it. And that's why sometimes it makes it so difficult to recognize because sometimes it'll have the same outward appearance. It'll look the same on the outside. And right now as human beings, I mean, we're kind of stuck just looking at the outside. We have two eyes and we can look at the consequences of repentance. We can look at what a repentant mind will produce. But the challenge there is sometimes an unrepentant mind will produce the same things. And so we have to be careful about that because there are a lot of people out there that aren't religious. They're not seeking God. They could care less, but they're halfway decent people. True? So we've got to make sure we're not taken in by that. We can't be taken in by that. That's really a pharisaical kind of point of view. So how do I know the difference? I think that's part of the challenge here. We know right actions flow from right motivations. We do what we do for the right reasons and then God is pleased with those actions. So how do I know it? How do I know if I can say, I am truly repentant? He says, I've got to change my thinking. I've got to rethink things and put on God's thoughts. Well, there's an interesting section in Ephesians that deals with this. Ephesians 4.

Ephesians is a wonderful letter that has so many tremendous truths in it.

In fact, we're going to concentrate on some of Ephesians 4 for these campaigns that are coming up because it defines so beautifully the family of God and what God's purpose is all about. The whole family in heaven and earth is named after Him. That is all found in the book of Ephesians. And as we get to chapter 4 in the book of Ephesians, he talks about the unity that's found in the faith. And in chapter 4, verse 17, he points to how we can know whether or not we're really repentant. So in verse 17, Ephesians 4, it says, This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk. Now, walking is a result of our brain telling our feet to move, right? Which is our thinking. Our thinking is telling our feet what to do, and what the Gentiles are doing isn't good. We're not to walk that way anymore. And notice at the end of that verse 17, it says, In the futility of their mind, what they think about, verse 18, their thinking, it says, has their understanding darkened, they're alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that's in them, because of the blindness of their heart, who being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. Well, that's their thinking, and that's where it leads. But for us, he tells us, you have not learned so in Christ, if indeed you've heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus. Verse 22, that you put off concerning your former conduct the old man that grows corrupt according to the deceitful lust, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, that you put on the new man which was created according to God in true righteousness and holiness. Now, if we read that really quick, we can skip right over it so quickly and miss it.

But he says, put off the old way of thinking, be renewed in the spirit of your mind, our mind, we have to change our minds, we have to change our thinking. And how does it happen? He says, it's through the power of the spirit of God. It's through God's Spirit that gives us the opportunity to change our thinking. I mean, if we're really repentant, we've made a binding commitment to God, and that commitment is in our hearts and in our minds. And we want to strive to always please God. We want to reject the way this world thinks.

We've seen a lot of evidence of the way this world thinks recently. Their thinking is off. They don't understand. We've rejected the world's values. We've rejected the things that they consider important. We're committed to seeking God's mind.

I'm changing my thinking so that I can be more like God. I can put on Christ. I want to try to see everything from God's perspective and get my own way of thinking out of the way.

And see, when we've done that, that's when real change can begin to happen.

I think in the Love chapter, it puts it kind of interesting. Remember, when Paul describes what love was all about, he said, when I was a child, I spoke like a child. I understood like a child. I thought like a child. But when I became a man, my thinking changed. I put away childish thinking.

Some of the translations even say, stop thinking like a child.

Stop thinking like a baby. Think like mature people, like converted people. So that's the goal.

That's the goal. So no matter how long we've been around, there's still more that we need to rethink.

Things we need to rethink. Things we need to change. Things we need to repent about so that we can say, more of my thoughts are like God's thoughts. And that's the goal. So how do you change?

Maybe we can think about a couple of ways to really put this into practice. One of the great things is God's given us a spirit. You know, if we are committed to God, if we had hands laid on us, we have God's spirit. And we know Paul told Timothy, we don't have a spirit of fear, but we have a spirit of power and love and a sound. What was that sound? Oh, yeah. My thinking, my mind. Through the power of God's spirit, I can have that word for sound literally means healthy, a healthy mind, spiritually healthy thinking. So I got to walk away from my old way of thinking, from the world's standards, from my ways of looking at things. And I've got to seek out more of God's values and His standards. And the more we look out at this world, we think they're getting more and more removed from that way of thinking. And so it's just not there anymore. So as we begin to consider that, we have to change our thinking. And it's not that God's going to do it for us.

You know, does God do it for us? Now He doesn't do it for us, but He gives us the power to do it. He gives us the ability to change, but who's got to do the changing?

Yeah, I've got to do it. I've got to be the one. I have free moral agency. I can do what I want.

I can make the choices in my own. I control what I think. I control what I do.

I've been given God's Spirit. I have the opportunity. He's given me the ability through the Spirit of power to change who I am. But it's under my control whether I think those things. It's under my control whether I reject that thought or I just go with it. I have the choice whether to cast that way of thinking out of my mind or to engage it and go that way. God certainly leads me to repentance. We know there are passages in the Bible that talk about God leads us to repentance, but He doesn't force us to repent. He brings us up to that point to a different way of thinking and says, here's the way you should go. Now choose, choose.

And so we can think different from this world. We've got to make that choice. God's Spirit opens our minds to a totally new dimension, to a totally new way. Looking at things the way we never saw them before. You've probably been reading your Bible and all of a sudden you go, whoa, I've never seen that before. I never noticed it or never thought about it that way before. You know, that's opening our thoughts and our minds to God's way. And then we can choose to reject the opposite anything that opposes God and His way of thinking. And so that's the choice that we have to make.

We have to choose between my way, my regular way, my old way, my well-established, boy, I always did it this way before. Never gotten that much trouble. He says, no, we've got to choose what God has in store and we have to actively pursue it. And so it has to do with our thinking.

Our thinking. You know what the psychologists call this when they start working with people and they want to alter the way that they think. You know what they call that? They've got a special term for that. They call it cognitive restructuring. Cognitive has to do with our thinking. So we have to restructure our thinking. So I put down three actions of cognitive restructuring. Oh boy, look at that. Look out. Cognitive restructuring. That's just the way of saying I've got to change the way I think. Right? The way I understand things. Do we really put everything, put our whole mental capacities into trying to be more like God? Because I think first, how can I change my thinking if I don't know what I'm supposed to think? I don't know what I'm supposed to think.

How can I change? Well, this book tells us how we're supposed to think. We have the mind of God right here. Right? We've been given God's way of thinking right here. And so if we're going to restructure our thinking, we have to learn and know the truth. First and foremost, learn and know the truth. Because if I don't have the truth, how can I line up with God? How can I think the right thoughts if I don't even know what the right way of thinking is? So I really got to know the truth. I've got to learn the truth. So I've got to understand the truth. There's a cute little children's song. It's based on Psalm 119, or at least a little part Psalm 119, of course, the longest passage in the Bible, the longest chapter in the Bible. I think it's... maybe we better look. It's near the beginning. I think it's in verse 11, but I guess we'll look over there. Psalm 119, you're supposed to be able to plop your Bible open right in the middle, and it should be there. It never works for me exactly, right? But it's close. Psalm 32, so that's pretty close. But Psalm 119, let's see where it is.

It is in verse 11. Psalm 119, 11. I think it gets right to this first concept of learning and knowing the truth. There's this little kids song that's based on this particular verse. It says, your word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you.

I've stored up your word in my heart is the way the A-V, the authorized version, puts it. I've stored up your word. I've hidden it in my heart. In fact, I think the little kids song says something. I thought so much about your words that I put them in my heart. That's an amazing thought. That I know your way. I understand it so it's embedded in my brain.

And when God's word is embedded in our brain, what's going to come out in our actions?

Well, our actions have to be different. Now, it's kind of like saying, put thinking that way. Stop that. Stop thinking that way. Sounds simple, but it's not that easy.

But I think this is a key. You know, when we say, oh, learn the truth. Okay, that sounds pretty easy. Know it. All right. Okay. How am I supposed to do that? I think that's an amazing key. Can I take this and saturate my mind with God's word? Can I have it on my mind? You know, what do I think about most?

What is my prevailing thought of the day? Do I think about God? Do I think about His way? Do I think about right actions? Do I think about a Bible? Did it ever come up during the day? Well, maybe if I pull out my Bible, it's on my mind for a minute, and then I've got to go and, okay, I haven't thought about it for the rest of the day. Well, it should be on our mind. Like it says, I've hidden it in my heart that I've stored it up. It's there. It's always there. It is a vital part of me, and I've saturated my thinking with God's word. In other words, I've soaked myself. I've soaked, you know, my mind is like a sponge, and I've soaked in all of the Word of God.

That's certainly one way to restructure my thinking, knowing the truth, learning that truth, so that it's there, always there. I think that's a critical thing. And I think another thing we can do, we're going to change our thinking if we're going to have a cognitive restructuring of our brains. We've got to make it a habit. We've got to make it my habit. Make it my habit to think about His teachings. You know, when a situation comes up, whether I'm at work or whether it's a situation in my family or maybe it's a social... If something comes up, how do I react to a situation? Is God this active presence in my life that is a vital influence on my thinking? Well, He certainly should be. He certainly should be. And so as we begin to think about that, we need to make it our habit. We need to make it a habit of how we think. There's a passage in Colossians.

You can join me over in Colossians chapter 1. Colossians chapter 1 verse 26 is a great passage that reminds us of the amazing calling that we have. I mean, to be sitting here today is an awesome blessing. And sometimes we even take that for granted. But Colossians here is one of those sections that reminds us of this great calling that we have. Colossians 1, we'll kind of pick it up in the middle of the thought here in verse 26. Paul is talking about his different sufferings and the challenges that he faces. And talking about the truth, verse 26 he says, the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations. Now this mystery is talking about the truth of the Gospel. Talking about this great plan of salvation. Talking about the fact that we can be a part of the kingdom of God forever. We can be His children. It's not a mystery that is unknowable, but it's a mystery that has to be revealed to us. That's what that word means. It's mysterious, but only in the sense that it has to be revealed to us. So no wonder he says this mystery was hidden from the ages, but now has been revealed to us, to his saints. To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. It says, him we preach, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. So there's the big goal, that big unbelievable goal that God has set before us, that we make it our habit to be like Christ, to be hopefully striving for perfection. And of course, that's always the challenge. Sometimes you say, well, I was talking to a fellow a while back, and he was having this issue that was a difficult one, no doubt. And one of the things that he said to me was, yeah, I know I need to change, but if you only knew how far I've come. It's true, he was in rough shape. I mean, it was really, really, and he had made miraculous changes in his life, no doubt about that. And I've thought that thought before, too. And maybe we all have, you know, if you knew where I was before, maybe you wouldn't be so hard on me. But is that acceptable? Is that acceptable? You know, we're supposed to, it says here, strive for perfection, strive for perfection in Christ. And so we may not ever make it there, but that's the goal. That's the goal. So is there change? Is there a difference? Can I think more like Christ more and more as I go through my, well, absolutely, absolutely. In fact, I heard an interesting proverb the other day. I got to think of exactly what it was about the birds flying around. It was a good one, though. Oh, that's what it was. This old proverb is something like, I can't prevent the birds from flying over my head, but I can prevent them from making a nest in my hair. I thought that was kind of interesting. I can't prevent the birds from flying overhead, but I can prevent them from making a nest in my hair. So it's the same thing when we have problems and challenges and issues in our life, things that I need to change. Do I reject it? I can let stuff fly over my head, but I better not let it nest. I better not hang on to that wrong way of thinking.

Now, I've got to make sure my dominant thought is focused on what's good and what's right and what's pure and what's of a good report. We know the what-so-evers. What-so-ever is good, right. What is godly? Are those the kinds of thoughts that dominate our thinking? I was reminded of this the other day. We had a member who was going through a terrible, terrible, difficult trial. It's been a while ago now, but a couple of years ago, I was just in awe of this particular person because he had a way of looking at things so differently than most of us do. He was dying of cancer, and there was no hope for healing. It was just beyond that, and he had put his life in God's hands, plain and simple. Somehow, through all of it, he was able to keep the most amazing frame of mind. Even though the body was shutting down, and things quit working and functioning properly, and it became very obvious, this situation was horrible. It was awful. It was difficult.

Normally, I'm sure the challenges that are involved in that, it would be so much easier just to be bitter. Why did God put this on me? Why did this have to happen? But somehow, he made a choice in his mind. He didn't think life was unfair, which would have been the way I probably would have thought. It could have been justifiable to have a nasty attitude. He could have decided, you know, forget it. With this happening, he could have chosen to die bitter and broken, and just thrown in the towel. But he didn't. He chose to think differently, and he thought differently of the circumstances that most of us, it would just be, you know, maybe overwhelming.

And, you know, what it reminded me of is that he chose not to look at the temporary things.

And, boy, how often do we look at these temporary little things?

You know, I was talking to a married couple the other day, too, and they said, well, we never fight over the big things. Oh, we only fight over the little temporary inconsequential things. Well, isn't that just great? But we've all been there. We've all done that. This man chose to think differently of the circumstances and not look at those temporary things. And he looked at the situation around him, which was dire, and told me, I'm not afraid to die. I want to live. I want to go on. I want to be healthy. I'd rather be around so I could continue to serve God. But if that's not the case, I still love God. And I know he's got something better in mind for me. And that was so inspirational. And as I as I thought about that, how if he can do that, facing the most difficult situation, why can't I do that? When I just face regular everyday life, I've got to change the way I think. And so we do have a choice. And if we make it a habit, because I'm sure every day that he faced that, he had to make a choice. I've got to deal with his pain. I've got to be I've got to have the right attitude despite the fact I don't feel like it. And we do, too. We have the blessing of God's spirit. So are we developing the habit of having right thoughts, positive thoughts, those positive, powerful thoughts, I think, can only be supported by the power of God's spirit. And so we can make it our habit. God's given us the ability and the power. He's given us a power over sin. That is such an awesome thing. And so we can be different. And so what a blessing that is that we can make it a habit and really be different. Think differently. That brings us to a third aspect of this cognitive restructuring, rethinking things, changing the way that we think.

And this is probably, I think, the biggest challenge for all of us is that we don't leave any part of our mind out. Or in other words, I've got to love and serve him with all my mind.

All my mind. I can't hold back any section of my brain. I have to consciously choose to be a disciple. I want to think the way he would have me think, to do what God would have me do. And that means putting it into practice. I was reminded this the other day, I noticed the beautiful fields here in Wisconsin and Minnesota, all the crops growing up beautifully. And of course, if you're, if you planted a garden this year, you know, you get it all ready, right? You get it plowed up, you get all the weeds out, they annihilate all the weeds, it seems. That soil is rich, it's fertile, it's beautiful. And once that's done, you're finished, right? Well, not quite. The work's just begun. Oh yeah, I got to plant seeds, don't I? I've got to put the seeds in the ground. You just don't sit back and know, here comes the corn and here comes the tomatoes and everything's growing great, just pops right out of the ground. We know that's not the case.

We know that's not true. We know it's just begun. We got to plant those seeds if we're going to develop fruit. We're going to develop the crop. It's the same way, spiritually speaking, isn't it? We've got to give God our entire mind. The problems, the difficulties, the shortcomings, they've got to be replaced and annihilated so they don't come back.

Because it seems like once you pull a weed, two more pop up, right? Okay, I've got to get those two down. I've worked on that one. I've got to get that one set now. And developing those habits are such an important aspect of restructuring our brains. Paul probably said it the best way possible. Philippians 2.5. Philippians 2.5, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.

Right? That's the goal. God's Spirit opens up our thinking to a whole new dimension.

It enables us to understand things we weren't able to understand before. And now that we have that ability, God says, alright, let's choose what's right. Choose to reject the wrong way of thinking and put on the right way of thinking. And so God puts us into that frame of mind so we can do that very thing. So what an amazing blessing that God has given us so that we can do those things. And so when we have that kind of a repentant mind, we'll hold us back from having Christ's way of thinking. I mean, there won't be anything there that can hold us back from letting the mind of Christ be in us. We can obey. We can have all the outward signs that are a reflection of what's going on inside. They're genuine. They're real. They're absolute. So when we talk, we're talking God's way of speaking for all the right reasons. We're not going to be doing the things that are difficult and put us in a wrong way. We're going to control our feelings. We're going to be able to control our temper. And when it comes to dealing with our husbands and our wives, we can strive to put this into practice within our marriages. We can bring up our children as God would have us to bring them up. And we can determine to put out those things that aren't godly. And so when you put it all together, we see it's exactly what we were called to initially, to a whole new way of life, to a whole new way of thinking. And so God continues to call us, I think, to a deeper understanding of His way. Of course, there's going to be challenges. Of course, there's going to be problems. There's going to be trials and difficulties. Yeah, no doubt.

But we'll have a different perspective as we deal with them. And so we need to be sure that it starts with our mind. We need to let the mind of the Master be the master of our mind.

Let the mind of the Master be the master of our mind. And as we do that, we can fully and deeply be committed to God. We can truly change the way we think. We can think differently and truly repent of our own way of thinking. We can begin to see everything from God's point of view much more effectively. And we can replace those old values with God's way of thinking and His values. And we can put into effect the practices and the actions that show we have an unwavering faith in our mighty God. And the more we begin to do that, I think that's when we can say, I am thinking more like God is thinking.

Well, it's been great to be with you. We're looking forward to talking with all of you and staying around for the Bible study a little later. So it's good to see all of you.